


oh, your heart and how it beats

by CountessKlair



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, M/M, Pain, Trauma, like a lot of it so beware, moderate descriptions of psychological torture, well...a fluffy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 08:33:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16215371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CountessKlair/pseuds/CountessKlair
Summary: Despite all their efforts to protect Detective Kingston, Unit Bravo couldn’t have planned for every scenario and Murphy has now finally gotten his hands on his prey. Every minute Adam has to go without hearing the steady beat of Will’s heart drives him further and further into what feels like insanity.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so the timing of this fic is near the end of Book 1, where my Detective Will knows about the supernatural and the Unit is, despite all efforts to the contrary, really starting to care about him.

**Adam POV**

I stalked forward, slowly, silently, against the coverage of the forest towards the abandoned factory on the edge of Wayhaven alongside the rest of the unit. I almost wanted to appreciate the irony of Murphy having chosen this abandoned factory to bring Will, especially at night like this. It was, after all, the place all six of us had first met. The thought might have brought some measure of morbid humor to me, if Will hadn’t been missing, hadn’t been taken almost eight hours ago.

The fact that he wasn’t currently giving me hell about something was constantly putting me on the edge of frenzied rage, and I didn’t have the slightest clue why that was.

My eyes darted towards my watch, and I watched the minute hand tick over the twelve, the hour hand now resting precisely on the nine. I swallowed the growl in my chest. Eight hours exactly, now. We’d known something was wrong when Will had never come back from his lunch break after insisting on going to the bakery alone.

“Please, I’ll be fine,” Will had said, his head tilted slightly, the fluorescent lights catching the hazel of his eyes, smiling calmly in the face of my frustration, “I really don’t think I’m in danger in the middle of the day, you said it yourself, vampires operate best at night.”

How wrong he’d been. After his hour had been up, we’d started calling his cell, with no answer, and a lead weight had settled into my stomach, which only got heavier when Nate called the bakery, and we’d found out that Will had simply never shown up.

It hadn’t even been a full day since we’d come back from the Facility outside Wayhaven, hadn’t even been a week since Will had first found out about the supernatural.

We’d started the search immediately, searching the town as quietly and thoroughly as we could, practically becoming shadows to check apartment buildings, my ears straining to hear the faintest shadow of Will’s all too familiar heartbeat. We’d cleared the entire town and had started working through the abandoned buildings, factories, farmhouses, and silos scattered farther and farther away from Wayhaven before Mason had finally caught Murphy’s scent at the same place we’d almost captured him before.

The same place we’d met Will for the first time.

My legs couldn’t carry me fast enough, my mind blank except for Will’s smiling face morphing into something blank, pale, cold. Something dead.

Now, the four of us closed in on the door that lead inside, the other exits having been methodically blocked off by Mason while he had waited for the rest of us to arrive.

I started towards the door but Felix’s hand wrapped around my elbow.

I snapped my head towards him, a snarl building in my chest, when he met my eyes and calmly mouthed, “Wait. Listen.”

I bit down on my tongue, cold shame welling in my chest. I knew better than to rush into a building without thinking. The fact that we were looking for Will shouldn’t have changed that.

Felix dropped his hand, and I released some of the tension in my body as I tilted my head towards the door, letting my eyes close, the entire world slipping away as I listened.

I finally heard it; a faint, dull, somewhat unsteady thud of an unmistakable heartbeat, but as Nate lifted the heavy rotted wooden door out of the way, silent as could be, I realized I still couldn’t smell Will, just a whole lot of curdled, rotten blood turning my stomach into knots.

There were no sounds of someone rushing an exit, no sounds of acknowledgment that we were there, no pounding footsteps or vicious, angry snarls, and what little of Murphy’s scent I could smell over the blood wasn’t fresh.

I opened my eyes, meeting Felix, Nate, and Mason’s serious faces and nodded at them. Almost at once, we dashed inside, melting back into the shadows, spreading out to search.

The inside of the building was almost the same as the last time we’d seen it, rusted over machines piled together in the center of the wide open space, lit by moonlight coming through holes in the ceiling which was only broken up by termite ridden posts, everything covered in a thick layer of mostly undisturbed dust.

Save for a path cutting through the middle of the building, where two pairs of footprints had scraped away the debris on the floor, where one pair had dragged the first.

I looked up at a slight creak, to find Mason coming down a post from the second floor, shaking his head at me.

No one was outside, no one was upstairs, and no one was in the main room. I looked over at Nate, who was crouched in a corner and inspecting a workbench. He glanced over his shoulder, face drawn into a grimace. Felix, Mason, and I approached, Nate pointing at the workbench.

Even tucked away in the dark corner I saw it clearly, littered with sterile packed scalpels, syringes, gauze, and empty blood bags. My stomach turned as Nate wordlessly lifted up an overturned bucket next to the wall, and that scent of rancid blood intensified, blackened clots still clinging to the sides of the bucket.

So softly I wasn’t completely sure I’d heard it, Mason whispered, “What the fuck.”

I didn’t answer. I closed my eyes, listening for that heartbeat again. It was louder now, but no stronger or weaker, and now that we were inside the building I could more easily determine where it was coming from.

I opened my eyes and nodded towards the back corner of the building, in the direction of the heartbeat. I took the point, Felix, Nate, and Mason trailing behind me, with something too primal to be called hope building in my chest.

In the back corner of the building, there was a lone, solid iron door still tightly shut. I waited exactly half a second, glancing around at the other’s stony faces before I reared back, and with one kick, took the door down.

A soft cry came from inside the room, and I knew, I knew, without seeing him, that it was Will.

My heart pounded in my chest, I rushed in, yelling, “Will!”

As long as I lived, I’d never forget seeing him in that room, pitch black except for a few weak moonbeams falling across his form. Murphy had cuffed him with what I suspected were Will’s own handcuffs, the links joining his wrists looped around a rusted hook dangling from the ceiling that had Will’s body stretched to its fullest length, pulling his shoulders completely taut so high up that he seemed barely able to brace his weight on the tips of his toes, his entire body quaking with the strain.

Will’s pristine suit was ruined, his blazer missing entirely, the crisp white of his button-down stained with dirt and grease. And blood, there was so much fucking blood, splattered over him from head to toe, it’s stench overpowering everything else in the room.

I stumbled a little as I walked forward, the others darting out around me to search the small space, finding nothing but Will, strung up in the center.

I took another step forward, my throat sticking with a sudden tension as I swallowed, calling again, “Will…”

“Shut up.” Will hissed, and I froze in place. His eyes were wrenched shut, his voice was low, icy cold with anger, “Just, just, shut up.”

I took another halting step forward, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, my chest tight. I took a deep breath, opening my mouth to say something.

Will squeezed his eyes shut tighter, trembling now as he shouted, “I said shut up! I know it’s you, Murphy, you can’t pull the same joke over and over again and expect me to still fall for it. I know it’s you!”

A large tear rolled down Will’s cheek, his heartbeat erratic and the smell of pain coming into the room to mingle with the stench of the blood. “I know you’re not him.”

Will’s voice was softer, anguished. “I know you’re not Adam. So just get it over with or leave me alone.”

I crossed the space between us slowly, trying to think around the repeated thought of ‘ _he doesn’t think you’d come for him_ ’ banging around my head. I reached out towards him, words spilling out unbidden from my mouth. “Will, please, it’s me, I’m here.”

“No, you’re not.” Will cried softly, his posture slumping a little, pulling his shoulders higher and he yelled in pain, straightening back up.

Though I had jerked towards him, I managed to keep my hands to myself, trembling briefly with the effort it took.

I leaned forward a little, saying as gently as I could, “Your mother’s name is Rebecca.”

Will shook his head, not speaking.

I pushed forward, saying around the lump in my throat, “You drink your coffee with cream and enough sugar to please a twelve-year-old.”

Will’s breathing started to even out, though his eyes remained shut.

I said, a little stronger, “You never stop giving me trouble by running headlong into danger because you don’t care about your own personal safety if it means you protect this town.”

Slowly, achingly slowly, his eyes blinked open, adjusting to the gloom, those large doe eyes found mine in the darkness. I tilted my head just little more, letting the moonlight fall completely on my face.

“Adam?” He asked, his voice the quietest, most fragile thing I’d ever heard.

“It’s me,” I whispered back, and I couldn’t think about anything but how much it hurt to see him like this. “I’m here.”

I said the words so softly I wasn’t sure that he heard them at first.

He was silent again, studying my face like it might suddenly change or disappear, before tears started spilling down his cheeks and he gasped, words rushing into one another, “Please, I can’t really feel my hands anymore, I tried but I couldn’t get out of the cuffs, just please get me out of here.”

I moved before he was halfway through his sentence, bending a little to put my arms behind him, ready to pick him up.

Just before, I stopped myself and whispered, “This is gonna hurt, I’m sorry.”

Will only nodded in that quietly determined way of his, and I, as gently as I could, picked him up with one arm under his knees and the other behind his back, wincing as Will cried out in pain, his handcuffs slipping from the hook as I lifted him easily to cradle him against my chest.

Will was trembling violently, and my stomach roiled as I took a deep breath of all that blood, agony, and terror that had settled into his skin, because woven through it all there was the undeniable scent of Murphy.

Will reached out, curling slow fingers into my t-shirt, tucking his face into my chest, and I couldn’t help but hold him just a little tighter.

I remembered, suddenly, that the two of us were not alone in the room, and I looked up to find Felix, Nate, and Mason staring at the both of us.

I half expected Mason or Felix to make some sort of comment, but neither of them said a word. Mason’s face was dark with cold fury, and Felix looked like he was teetering between a rage equal to Mason’s and a guilty despair close to the one painted across Nate’s face.

We really, probably, should have split up then. One to take Will home while the others stayed behind to track Murphy. But I couldn’t make that call. Murphy was long gone, evidently, and Will…

I looked back down at Will, crying against my chest. I adjusted my grip, making sure that he was secure in my arms, before I turned toward the exit, Felix, Nate, and Mason falling into place behind me, and we started running towards Will’s apartment, Will’s heartbeat and breathing flooding out every other sound.

_——————_

Thankfully, Mason didn’t take too long to pick the lock to Will’s front door, and we didn’t run into any nosy neighbors wondering why their Detective was covered in black blood and dirt and being carried into his apartment by four men at this hour of night.

Will’s apartment looked the same as it had the last time I’d seen it, pillows and throw blankets covering every sitting or lounging surface all completely undisturbed, and as I carried him over to the couch, Felix, Mason, and Nate spread out to search it, just in case.

I leaned over to put Will down on the cushions but froze when his heart rate, which had seemed to settle, suddenly spiked and fear punched through his bloodstream, his fingers tangling in my shirt.

“Don’t-” Will started, voice rushed and a little panicked before he bit down on his lower lip and forced himself to take a deep breath. I stayed where I was, frowning down at him.

His fingers tightened fractionally, and bent his head down so I couldn’t see his face as he asked against my neck, “Don’t go?”

I closed my eyes. I knew I should go, some part of me asked over and over again what in the actual hell I was doing holding him like this, why his body being held so close to mine was something I wanted so desperately, why I wanted to keep contact for as long as possible.

But none of those questions stopped me from feeling the answer in my very bones as I turned and sat on the couch, still holding Will close enough to feel his entire body relax and lean even further into me.

When this was over, I was going to drive myself insane questioning why I was doing what I was doing, but at that moment all I could do was shove the thoughts away.

I heard somebody rustling around somewhere in the apartment, and I looked up when Nate, Felix, and Mason came back into the room, nodding firmly at me that everything was fine, that we were finally safe and that Murphy hadn’t been here.

Callused fingertips brushed against my arm, and I looked over, finding that those fingers belonged to Will. I restrained a sigh of relief, letting my head dip down to study him a little more intently.

It was then that I finally got a good look at his wrists. In the harsh light of his apartment, his wrists were rubbed completely raw in places, the area of skin the cuffs had circled bruised so deeply it looked nearly black.

I couldn’t stop myself as I pulled him just a little bit closer to me, and he shifted in my arms, lifting his hands up to the light, wincing in pain.

His voice was a little bit stronger than before when he said, “I really hope my shirt cuffs will cover these, Verda would go berserk.”

One of the floorboards creaked, and I had to stop myself from flinching at the movement when Mason sat down across from us on the coffee table, face artfully blank as he set down a large first aid kit and held out his hands. “Here. I’m the most medically qualified.”

Will complied, not questioning, and I shifted the both of us closer to Mason as he brought out supplies to clean and bandage his wrists.

And definitely not willing to consider why, exactly, I hadn’t just left Will in Mason’s more than capable hands and gone to do another perimeter sweep.

Nate sat down next to us on the couch, his face, for once, looking as old as he really was. “Would you like to go to the hospital?”

I wanted to kick myself. Of course he needed a hospital. He’d just been held hostage for the last eight hours, there was severe bruising on his wrists and who knew what other injuries, and we’d found him covered in blood-

Will interrupted my increasingly panicked thoughts with, “Absolutely not. They would most likely keep me in the empty ER for the next four hours just to take one look at me and tell me to go home.”

He shifted again, tilting his head to try a smile aimed at Nate. “Besides, none of the blood is mine.”

Nate’s eyes darted up to meet mine.

The fact that none of it was his blood was definitely something to question, but not now. We’d ask him later.

I didn’t want to ask him now, when he finally seemed calmer. I didn’t want to make him relieve what he’d just experienced, not just yet. I wanted to keep him safe, just for a little bit.

Nate must have read that intention in my expression, because he nodded and settled back into the cushions of the couch, dropping the subject.

Will hissed in pain, a soft cry from his chest, and I turned back, watching Mason swab gently at his wrists, cleaning off some dried blood.

Unthinkingly, I moved the hand that still rested on Will’s back up to the nape of his neck, moving my fingers through the shortly cropped hair there, pressing softly into the tense column of his neck.

A much louder reiteration of ‘what the hell are you doing’ echoed through my skull.

I turned my head, not wanting anyone to see the expression on my face when he instantly relaxed again, his head tilting back to press into my fingers.

I hadn’t been thinking, really, when I had first pulled Will into my arms. I just knew that I needed to get him somewhere safe, familiar. I had taken him to his apartment without any real thought, and part of me was upset at myself for not even considering the hospital, but the rest of me couldn’t bother, especially when he had said he didn’t want to go to the hospital.

Mason reached for the gauze and Will pulled his hands away. “No, not yet. I kinda want to wash all of…”

Will’s body stiffened under my hands, and he finished quietly, “I wanna get all this off of me.”

Mason nodded shortly, standing to go fiddle with the locks on the apartment door.

“Can you stand?” I asked, my voice coming out a little quieter than I had planned.

Will looked up at me, eyes undecipherable. “Well…actually…”

My thumb dragged, unbidden, across the back of his neck, and his fingers curled into my t-shirt.

Taking a quiet breath, he whispered, “I don’t wanna be alone, yet.”

I didn’t know what expression was on my face, but it made him look away, swallowing hard, “I know, it’s stupid, I’m sorry, I just-”

He fell silent and I shifted the hand on the back of his neck back down between his shoulder blades, rubbing a small circle.

I murmured to him, “It’s not stupid.”

He looked up at me, our eyes locking again, and I promised, “It’s not.”

After another moment, he nodded, and I guided him back to rest against my chest, standing up to walk over to his bathroom.

Will sighed, soft and sweet, against my neck.


	2. Chapter 2

**Adam POV**

 

As we entered the bathroom and I nudged the door closed with my heel, I heard Felix talking quietly on the phone, and in my head, I calculated the distance from Wayhaven to New York after Agent Kingston’s meeting with HQ tomorrow morning.

Will’s bathroom, like the rest of his apartment, was kept utterly pristine, and I caught a glimpse in the mirror of how out of place we looked there against the white walls.

Suddenly, I wasn’t sure how to proceed.

Will noticed the uncertainty on my face and smiled, a little more real, a little more like himself. “You can put me down now, Adam.”

I nodded, and gently, slowly, set him down, though I kept my hands on his waist until he nodded at me.

He reached for the buttons on his shirt and I turned away, fascinating myself with the wood grain on the door, ignoring the soft noises behind me, focusing instead on the now steady thrum of his heartbeat.

A few moments later, I heard the rasping drag of the shower curtain closing, and Will said, “You can turn around now.”

I turned around with a small grunt of acknowledgment as the shower came to life.

I took one look at the putrid-smelling pile of ruined, blood-soaked clothes and picked them up, opening the bathroom door.

Nate, who was standing in the doorway to Will’s bedroom, looked over at me, his eyes finding the pile of clothes in my hands. I held the clothes out toward him and he nodded at me, taking them from me. He disappeared around the corner, and a moment later I heard the front door open and shut again.

Will heard it too because his heartbeat spiked and he called out, “Adam!”

I shut the bathroom door quickly, darting over to the shower, my hand covering my eyes just as Will ripped it back, his heartbeat pounded in my ears, fear swelled through the scent of his blood again.

“I’m here,” I promised, eyes still covered, “It’s ok, Nate just left for a second.”

I heard the shower hooks squeak against the rod, Will’s breathing easing a little, but not enough.

“I just…” Will’s voice was so soft I could hardly hear it above the rush of water, voice low and distraught and I couldn’t help but move forward half a step in response to it as he managed to continue, “I can’t believe that I’m really here yet. I can’t accept it yet, it seems like you’re too good to be true, and it’s so stupid but every time I take my eyes off of you I’m afraid you’ll disappear.”

“I won’t.” I couldn’t keep the dark severity out of my voice. “I swear, I won’t leave you.”

He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, until, “This is gonna sound really weird and I’m sorry but I just…can I keep the curtain open? I just…I can’t stand…”

He made a frustrated noise. “I can’t explain it in a way that doesn’t sound awful.”

I lifted a hand. “Will, I understand.” I felt back behind me and sat on the cold stone counter of the bathroom countertop. “I promise not to look. I don’t need my eyes to protect you if-”

I cut myself off, scowling to myself at the words that had been about to exit my mouth.

Silence reigned, except for the sounds of the water and Will moving around, of Felix and Mason talking softly outside, Will’s heartbeat returning to normal, the stench of all that foreign blood washing away.

In its absence I noticed that Will’s soap smelled like pine trees, clean and fresh and crisp. I’d only ever smelled it when I was…close to him before, but now it surrounded me, familiar, comforting.

Something was missing from it, though, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Ah!” Will yelped in pain, hissing softly.

I barely restrained myself from darting forward, and I made sure to keep my hand over my eyes and my voice calm as I asked, “What’s wrong?”

Will paused for a second, then sighed, “I can’t lift my arms to wash my hair, and I really want this blood out as soon as possible, and hot water alone isn’t entirely doing the trick. I think some of it got matted somehow.”

There was a beat while I absorbed this information.

Then, Will asked, “I know it’s a lot and you can still say no…but could you…help me?”

I didn’t let myself speak.

‘Why are you even considering this?!’ some part of me screamed. There was a lot of different ways that this could go wrong. Will’s blood tempted all of us on a regular basis, and the acrid smell of the foreign blood was no longer going to serve as a buffering distraction between my senses and his blood.

But it wasn’t even his blood that I was worried about. Not really.

Will was still waiting for an answer.

I nodded, slowly, and he exhaled in sharp relief. As he shut the water off, I reached to the side to pull a towel from the wall and held it out towards him.

He took it from me. A few moments later, he said, “Ok, I’m covered up.”

I paused for a couple seconds, steeling myself before I removed my hand from my eyes.

I locked my eyes on Will’s face and did not let my gaze wander over his deep tawny skin as I stood and came closer to the shower. While he did look much better than he had before, less wild and terrified, more color had come back into his cheeks, it was still outweighed by the exhaustion in his eyes and the hunched set of his shoulders.

Wordlessly, he handed me his shampoo. I poured some into my palm, keeping a firm hold on the thoughts trying to race through my head, as well as on my heartbeat’s quickened pace.

There was nothing to be nervous about.

I set to work, keeping my touch as light and gentle as possible, working my way through the blood snarling his hair. The smell of peppermint mingled with the pine of his soap, and it clicked into place for me.

That’s exactly what had been missing before, the peppermint and pine the perfect complement to each other. Will’s natural scent even reflected the things he used, clean, crisp, cool without being too sharp, rounded out by the warm edges of the blood moving through his veins.

The scent of the ruined foreign blood slipped away as I kept massaging my fingers through his hair, and it was almost too much.

The feel of his soft heartbeat against my skin, the softer puffs of warm breath, the clean and fresh scent of his skin and hair, the rush of his blood under his skin, the way that woven through all of it was the unending, complete and total trust in his sunshot honey hazel eyes.

It was almost too much, all of it, but I couldn’t stop myself from lingering, stupidly, just for a moment, letting my hands glide through the suds on his scalp one more time, take a dangerously deep breath, before I stepped back and turned away from him to rinse my hands in the sink.

My own heartbeat was racing in my ears, my mind stupidly blank even as Will’s heartbeat was finally steady.

The front door opened and closed again, and Felix announced loud enough for Will to hear, “Nate’s back.”

And then, someone walked right up to the bathroom door, knocking softly.

Will pulled the shower curtain closed, and I opened the bathroom door.

Felix, standing on the other side, held out a bundle of fabric silently.

I took them from him, murmuring, “Thanks.”

Felix met my eyes for a second, studying something he saw there. Then the moment passed, and he grinned, “You two better hurry up or Nate and I are gonna eat all the lemon bars Will made this weekend.”

I rolled my eyes, closing the door.

I kept my back turned away from the shower, listening to a soft thump hitting the floor as the water turned back on.

A couple minutes later, the water shut off again and I heard the curtain open.

I focused on keeping my attention away from the soft sounds of Will moving behind me, blocking out the sensations and trying to preserve some sort of privacy.

Then he sniffed, and then I was uncomfortably aware that he was crying. My hands tightened a fraction on his clothes, but I forced myself to relax.

I cleared my throat and heard him stop moving behind me. “I have some clothes for you, but, uh, Felix got them. I don’t know…”

Will chuckled wetly, little humor in the sound. “I’m sure that it’ll be fine, Adam. Can you hand them here?”

I twisted my body, keeping my head facing away from him and blindly holding out his clothes.

As he dressed, I tried to say, “We won’t let you out of our sight again. Not until Murphy is dealt with.”

A shallow hiccup came from behind me, and Will croaked quietly, “Yeah. I know.”

It didn’t help for past mistakes. But it was true. We knew Murphy was still around and still wanted Will, and that he wasn’t going anywhere. We’d find him, take him back to the Agency, and Will would never have to deal with him again.

Suddenly Will made a loud, choked off sound of pain, and I asked sharply, “Will?”

I waited for a few seconds, before he answered, voice very small, “I can’t put my sweatshirt on.”

I swallowed. “Can I help?”

“Please.” He breathed.

I turned around.

My gaze traveled over his bare chest before I could stop myself, and I was relieved to see that there were no other wounds on his skin that I could see, not even the faintest shadow of a bruise.

Even though it was clear by his physique that he was extremely fit, and I knew that he was a very accomplished boxer, he didn’t exactly look the part, only barely taller than Felix, not quite as broad as Mason, which meant by default that he was quite a bit shorter than me.

He’d never seemed smaller than me before, however, his personality filling up every space he was in, drawing your eye and commanding your respect. But now, standing there, he looked smaller than I’d always thought he was.

My gaze lifted to his face, and I saw the heavy tear tracks that trailed down Will’s cheeks, fresh tears still spilling down his skin, his breathing less controlled, rougher, heavier.

I stepped closer to him and took the grey sweatshirt from his lax fingers, noting absently that it said ‘Brown University Boxing Club Est. 1764’ on the front.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, so very low in the quiet around us.

Will’s eyes darted up to mine. “Hey.”

I couldn’t look away from him, so unfairly beautiful even here, even now.

Will smiled, eyes shining. “I’ve been through worse. I used to be a boxer, remember? This doesn’t even crack my top one hundred injuries.”

His eyes searched mine before he said, voice warm, “I’m not upset with you or anyone else but Murphy. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

I opened my mouth to say God knew what, but Will’s hand clasped around mine, a flinch crossing his face with the movement. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

As he blinked, dark lashes fanning across his cheeks, another tear fell.

I wanted to tell him, ‘I can’t stop worrying about you.’

But I didn’t.

I reached up, brushing the tear away, my fingers only barely touching his skin.

He sighed, deep, like it came from his soul, his shoulders just…easing.

I took a half step back and turned my attention to his sweatshirt.

It took a few minutes, and Will was crying more by the time I was done, no matter how gentle and slow I had gone, but he seemed more…secure, somehow. Like putting on his clothes had solidified that he was here, he was safe.

Will swayed into me, saying, “I really am not fond of kidnapping. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

I chuckled quietly, “I’ll pass along your review.”

Will hummed. “Can you help me to my bedroom? I think standing this long isn’t all that good for me.”

“Let’s bandage your wrists first.”

He glanced down at his wrists, then nodded. “Alright. At least I’m getting the feeling back in my hands.”

I picked him up again, just as careful as before, and carried him out to the living room, settling down on the couch the same way we had before, Mason falling into place immediately, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips.

Nate looked over from where he was staring out the window. “You look much better, Will.”

Felix hummed in agreement around a bite of lemon bar.

Will smiled at them both as Mason started wrapping gauze around his wrist. “I do feel better.”

Felix’s eyes darted over Will’s body. “You’re crying, though.”

Nate frowned at Felix, but Will only sighed. “I know,” he sniffed, wiping at his cheeks with his free hand, “I think it’s the shock setting in.”

Mason switched hands, and Will gave a huge yawn.

“You should sleep,” I said.

Will leaned back against me and he frowned, “I should, but I don’t know how well I’ll sleep.”

He shifted slightly, then admitted, “If I can’t even shower alone, I don’t know if I can go to sleep alone.”

Nate stepped away from the window, opening his mouth to say something.

Instead of letting Nate finish his sentence and say what I knew he was going to say, I found myself offering, “I could watch over you.”

Suddenly, I felt the weight of three shocked gazes, Mason’s apprehensive, Nate’s a hint confused, Felix’s verging on delighted.

Will didn’t answer the idea for several long minutes until Mason had finished wrapping his wrists and was putting the first aid kit back. “I’ve already asked so much of you today.”

I shrugged easily, not finding the words I needed to tell him that it was ok.

He thought, a little longer, then nodded. “Ok, yeah. That’d be great.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Adam POV**

 

Will had settled down on the bed, limbs carefully arranged in the most comfortable position, and I was trying to figure out how I got to where I was.

Sitting in one of the armchairs from the living room that Nate had stuffed between the bed and the wall, my legs outstretched on the bed, a book laying forgotten on my lap, Will stretched out diagonally across the bed so his body was close to me, moonlight filtering in through the window and painting him navy blue and silver, his breathing slow and even.

And his fingers, calloused from years of boxing and weights and work, loosely tangled with my own.

His hand was warm in mine, solid, real. I could feel his pulse on my skin, hear it clearly in my ears, and see the flutter of it in his elegant neck even in the dark of his bedroom, but I still couldn’t believe that he was really with me.

Alive, safe, solid, real.

Murphy had never made such a glaring mistake like leaving a victim alive and alone, not to mention a victim with the importance Will surely held now that he was the only human left on the planet with the blood mutation Murphy had been targeting. Murphy had always been careful, exceedingly so.

The only explanation I could think of was that Murphy simply hadn’t been ready to take Will yet, but had captured him prematurely. I was certain that Murphy knew by now that we were watching over Will and if he hadn’t known before he would by now. So it did make sense for Murphy to have leaped at the first opportunity to take Will.

My fingers tightened on Will’s hand, my eyes tracing over his sleep softened features, letting the sound of his slow, even breathing fill my ears.

Despite what Will’s reassurances, I knew that this was my fault for allowing him to go to the bakery alone. If someone had been with him they might have been able to take Murphy on, or maybe get Will out of there, or just…something.

But as it was I’d failed to protect him, and I couldn’t focus on anything else around me, not the book, not the stir of the sleepy town outside his bedroom window, not the low murmur of the unit talking outside, not anything at all but the way Will looked while sleeping. The way the soft grace of his posture stayed even now, the way his skin looked in the weak moonlight from the window, the way he would, every so often, rouse enough from his sleep to ease himself closer to me.

All of it was proof he was really here.

I had no real idea of how long it had been since he’d fallen asleep, time sort of slipped by me, but certainly, hours had passed now.

I was still watching him when his face creased, a small sound caught in his chest. His heartbeat beat a hair faster, and I tried to keep myself from going completely rigid next to him. Human sleep was weird, maybe his dream was exciting and his pulse would even out in a few minutes.

No.

As the minutes passed, his pulse only crept higher and higher, his breathing grew erratic and labored, the acrid scent of fear punching through the pine and peppermint.

He tossed his head on his pillow, a long, pained whine escaping him.

I reached out to him to do God knew what and whispered, “Will?”

His eyes flew open.

For a moment, we both froze solid, staring at one another as whatever nightmare that had plagued Will was swept away by wakefulness.

Then, those honey hazel eyes sharpened to focus on my face and panic bloomed in their depths. The scent of fear only intensified and suddenly Will was wrenching away from me, scrambling off of the bed to crowd himself against the wall on the other side, a choked cry coming from his lips, his heart pounding louder and louder in my ears.

“Wait, Will, it’s me!” I said quickly, remembering that all his eyes could see would be a dark shape hovering over him after a traumatic couple of weeks. I held up my hands and stood, slowly, leaning forward into the moonlight so it could fall across my face like I had in the abandoned factory.

Will, sheets still tangled around his ankles, did not say anything.

I watched him closely for any sign of what to do next. Softly, I said, “It’s Adam.”

“Adam.” His voice was weak, and his heart still raced but the panic and fear had started to lessen slightly. “Adam.”

I nodded, slowly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. You were having a nightmare.”

He shrugged, wincing at the movement of his shoulders, the dull echo of his nightmare in his eyes. “Yeah, I just…I thought you were Murphy.”

My chest tightened, and it was a little harder to breathe through the pain of that admission. The chorus of ‘your fault your fault’ echoing in my head grew louder for a few moments. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

Will nodded tightly and moved to get back on the bed, but with the tangled sheets around his ankles, his no doubt extensive exhaustion, and the loss of the adrenaline from waking up in the throes of a nightmare, he tripped on his sheets and tipped backward.

He knocked his shoulder against the wall behind him in an effort to keep his balance and he yelled out in pain.

I was moving before I was aware of what I was doing, rounding the bed in a flash and pulling Will gently away from the wall and into my arms.

I forced myself to stop, fighting a blush at my actions, stammering, “I, I, I’m sorry, I just…”

But Will only shook his head at me, a curiously desperate look in those endless eyes. His hands curled around my biceps, his thumbs slipping under the sleeves of my t-shirt before he moved closer to me, his eyes searching mine as he asked, “Can I? Can I just…?”

I held my breath for a few minutes, waiting for whatever it was that he wanted from me.

Finally, he managed, voice so quiet I almost missed it, “Can you hold me?”

I couldn’t trust myself to speak, so I only nodded at him, watching the relief in his eyes. I pulled him closer to me, reached down to sweep him up into my arms, murmuring a soft apology at his flinch from jostling his shoulders.

I took him back to the armchair, settled the both of us into it, my legs stretched back out on the bed, Will curled up in my lap and tucked closely to my chest, my cheek against his forehead.

I hoped he couldn’t hear the way my heart was beating.

We stayed like that, silent, unmoving, as Will’s scent and pulse returned to normal.

His fingers started tracing light, shapeless patterns on my arm. “I had a nightmare.”

I hummed quietly to let him know I was listening but didn’t interrupt him.

“I don’t really remember much after leaving the station,” Will began, “but I know I woke up in that room in the factory, right where you found me, head pounding, shoulders aching, and just barely able to keep the feeling in my fingertips.”

His fingers twitched as he speaks, and I traced the crisp white bandages on both of his wrists with my eyes.

He swallowed. “I knew Murphy had me. I wasn’t awake for long when he came in. He told me I’d be there for a while because he didn’t have everything quite ready for me yet. That I should close my eyes because the next part got a little grotesque.”

I stopped the rumble of anger in my chest, made myself remain silent.

Will continued on, voice tight as a bowstring, “I didn’t know what he was gonna do, but he came in with a bucket and poured it on me. At first, I thought it was water, what a cliche y’know? But then I caught the smell…” He shuddered and tucked his head closer to me. “ He said the blood was to disguise my scent so you couldn’t track me, because he needed more time to get everything in place for his final experiment.”

I moved my hand from Will’s back to his hip, my thumb rubbing circles there. A small amount of the tension in his body bled out of him.

“Murphy would, um,” Will’s voice started trembling, “Murphy would leave the room for a while, and then, when I wasn’t expecting it, he’d come back in and all I’d see was a figure in the doorway and he’d call out and it’d be a perfect mimicry of your voice and I’d think it was really you until he lunged at me from out of the shadows and it’d be…him…”

I held him closer, rocking back and forth ever so slightly as Will struggled to contain his breathing, the salt of tears staining the air around me. I was unable to force any sound out of the confines of my throat. 

I would rip Murphy apart from the intestines outward.

Will took a deep breath, steadying himself a little. “A few times after he poured the, um, blood all over me,” he swallowed hard, “Murphy would come in close and…lick it off of me. Like some B list horror movie villain.”

He was shaking again.

I closed my eyes, moved my arm out from under his knees so I could cup his cheek, leaned away from him to look him in the eye.

Tears had tracked down his face again, his eyes looking far older than they should.

“I’m sorry.” I croaked, “I wasn’t quick enough. I should never have let you go alone. I should have been prepared for this. I should have gotten you back sooner. I should have kept you safe.”

Will shook his head, carefully to avoid dislodging my fingers, and he reached up, grimacing at the movement, to press his hand to my cheek.

My breath stuttered out of me like he’d hit me with a haymaker.

Will’s thumb dragged across my cheekbone as he shushed, “I would have preferred to not have been there, that’s true. But you got me back. Safe and sound.”

A pained noise fell from my lips.

Will chuckled wetly, “Ok, yes, a little worse for wear. But you got to me in time.”

His hand slipped down to my chest, my own hands pulled him closer, closer.

He curled in tight against me, head on my shoulder, whispered against my neck, “Thank you, Adam.”

He was asleep again in moments, much too quickly for me to respond, still struck dumb by him. His kindness, his gentleness, his softness and innate goodness.

His sleep was calm, his heartbeat steady, his breathing even.

He smelled of nothing but pine and peppermint and the hazy edge of slumber.

I closed my eyes, letting my hands trace the warm weight of his form, the feel of his body next to mine forever burned in my mind.

Quiet as could be, too quiet for anyone but myself to hear, I whispered, “Always. Anything you need.”

**Author's Note:**

> if you wanna see more of my stuff on TWC then head over to my tumblr marriedtoseangayle and check it out. also please play this game (found on your local app store or Steam for $5) it's really really good.


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